Wingnuts hold on for 4th straight victory

GARY, Ind. — The Wichita Wingnuts won their fourth game in a row on Monday night, beating the Gary SouthShore RailCats 6-5 at US Steel Yard.

Jorge Cortes hit two home runs and drove in four, while Nick Singleton improved to 4-0 with six strikeouts in 6.1 innings of work.

Josh Dew recorded a four-out save to preserve the win, escaping jams in both the eighth and ninth innings.

With the Wingnuts leading 6-4 in the bottom of the eighth, Dew came on with first and second and two outs. After Dew walked Toddric Johnson to load the bases, the Wingnuts' closer came back and retired Mike Rohde on a popup into short right that was caught by second baseman Evan Button.

With one out in the ninth, Chris Carrara reached first on an infield single and moved to second when Adam Klein reached on an error charged to Jorge Delgado. Mike Massaro hit a groundball to short that Josh Horn used to start a force play at second. Evan Button's return throw to first went over the head of Delgado and allowed Carrara to score Gary SouthShore's fifth run. With the tying run on first and two outs, Dew struck out Kyle Haines to end the ballgame and earn his league-leading fifth save.

Trailing 2-0 in the top of the second, the Wingnuts plated four runs to take their first lead of the night. Mike Conroy singled through the left side and advanced to third on Button's hit-and-run single through the right side. After Horn walked, Conroy scored on a shallow fly to right hit by Ryan Patterson that cut the lead to 2-1. Cortes was next and hit a towering, three-run home run just inside the right field foul pole to give Wichita a 4-2 lead.

The Wingnuts added a run in the top of the fifth when Juan Richardson's double play ball with first and third and no outs scored Patterson. Cortes made it 6-2 Wichita with a line drive solo home run down the right field line in the seventh.

Singleton retired 10 batters in a row after allowing an infield single to Cristian Guerrero in the first. Singleton allowed three earned runs in 6.1 IP, walking two and allowing just five hits.

The RailCats chipped away at the Wingnuts lead scoring twice in the seventh on RBI from Rohde and Carrara.

Gary scored twice in the first to take a 2-0 lead on an RBI triple from Massaro and a sacrifice fly by Haines.

Nolan Nicholson took the loss for Gary, allowing five earned runs in five innings.